Where should I begin? I didn’t mean to insult him; I was just trying to explain the situation. Of course, he was being just as pigheaded as ever and only heard what he wanted to. I can’t believe that used to think he was the most fascinating man I had ever met. I looked up into his chocolate brown eyes, expecting them to be angry, but instead they were twinkling with silent laughter. What in the world….?

“Jamie, you don’t need to explain to me, I get it,” he said smiling, “You’re in love with me.”

“What?!”

That was not what I expected to hear. How did this conversation go from me trying to explain what happened at the boathouse to this? Jackson was the most confusing man I had ever met. Sure, he was tall and handsome, with short masculine hair and just the right amount of whiskers to tickle when you touch them. He was smart and he owned his own business as a mechanic, so he wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. And his hands, I have to admit that his hands are damn sexy. I know it’s a weird thing to find attractive in a man, but there’s just something about big hands that does it for me. And you know what they say about guys with big hands…. They have big gloves.

“What in the world would make you think that I’m in love with you?” I almost laughed out loud at the thought.

“What’s not to love?” He gave me that lopsided grin that I was sure made all the ladies melt. Well, it wasn’t going to work on me. I was there to explain why I had rushed out of there in the middle of his speech. He had acted like I left because of something he said during the speech. Which wasn’t entirely untrue, but I wasn’t the one who disagreed with him. My ex-boyfriend Mark had stormed out the back of the Town Hall building huffing and puffing that Jackson didn’t know what he was talking about. “How could a mechanic have the business insight needed to run a project like that?” he had demanded. He had made it sound like Jackson wasn’t capable, which I knew he was. Just because Mark had a business degree from a fancy school upstate, didn’t mean that people without a college education weren’t intelligent. Look at what Jackson had accomplished already! His vintage car restoration business was one of the biggest reason that outsiders even visited Holly Valley. Jackson had connections in New York City and Hollywood, which helped him to become one of the main suppliers of restored cars for TV shows and films.